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| Honda's new-found single status has clearly helped. With small car Brio in its fold, Honda outgrew European car maker Volkswagen to sell 73,483 units in the last financial year. The company recently launched its first diesel model, the Amaze, in the Indian market. Production is full steam ahead at the facility in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh and Rs 2,500 crore is being invested in a diesel engine unit, a second car assembly line for 120,000 units and a forging plant in Tapukara, Rajasthan. Till September this fiscal, Honda's sales grew 68 per cent to 59,617 units - at a time when the domestic automobile market shrank five per cent. Unlike many business heads , Kanayama is surprisingly optimistic about the latent potential of the Indian market and predicts that a turnaround is imminent. "We are working to the maximum extent and, of course, we hope for recovery at the earliest. The rupee has picked up. I hope the Indian economy will pick up as we have a new RBI governor," he says thoughtfully. But what made Honda wait so long before striking out in the Indian market, we ask. Kanayama laughs. He gets the same question from his associates, he tells us. "It's only in India and in Europe that we see diesel demand. America, Japan, China and Latin America have only 1 to 2 per cent sales in diesel, so, we prioritised those advanced markets." Also, he points out, although the decision to enter the diesel car market was made much earlier, it takes time to develop a brand new engine. "Honda takes pride in making its own engines," he is at pains to point out. Where does he see Honda among established players such as Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai? Kanayama skirts the question cleverly. "Our target is always our customer, products must be competitive and being competitive means ensuring the customer likes our cars." |
| Going full throttle in a slowing Indian car market, Honda Motor Company plans to launch three vehicles including an MPV within a year and is even looking at the possibility of building a car in India for the country by beefing up its local R&D team. The Japanese carmaker will launch the fourth-generation Honda City next week, to be followed by a new Jazz hatchback and Mobilio, a multi-purpose vehicle that will take on Maruti's Ertiga, over the next 12 months. The made-in-India car - a small car to be built by the Indian R&D team - is, however, some time away, Honda executives said. That is because a car for Indian roads with local pricing will have to be developed from scratch, they said. In an interaction with Indian media at the Tokyo Motor Show, Yoshiyuki Matsumoto, Honda's managing officer for Asia and Oceania regions, said, "Please keep your expectations high." Matsumoto is responsible for development, purchasing and production for the region. "I spend most of my time in India," he said and added that there is a demand for a vehicle with three rows of seats with the right pricing. After the proposed three launches, Honda will compete with market leader Maruti-Suzuki in at least 50% of the Indian car market. There is also speculation that Vezel, Honda's latest SUV, is billed to take on Renault's Duster in India by 2015. But no Honda official confirmed this, only stating that studies are going on. The carmaker is one of the few auto majors bullish about India and has increased market share in the country, which has slowed down considerably. "I understand, I am in India for that reason," Matsumoto said, when quizzed about Honda's ambitious plans, which will see the company double its capacity to 300,000 cars in the country by expanding its plant in Uttar Pradesh and building a plant in Rajasthan. Honda expects to sell over 6 lakh vehicles in Asia Oceania this fiscal, with India contributing 1.2 lakh units. It targets to double Asia Oceania sales by fiscal 2017 with India accounting for one-fourth, or about 3 lakh cars, from two manufacturing units. |
| "Our entry model will be Brio and Amaze; we don't have plans for a smaller car like Wagon R or Alto. We have no plans to make Brio Diesel too. What we will do is, expand dealer network in the coming years, especially tier-II and tier-III cities, given the fact that Maruti Suzuki has over 1,300 dealerships, which is several times ours; thus we have a huge room to grow through new dealerships." "Market share is not our target, it means nothing to us. All we have to do is target segment number 1, in whatever segment we are, so there is a lot of improvement for growth." "We will, however, not sacrifice quality of product and services. Certain things can be expedited. For instance, the Tapukara plant (in Rajasthan) production schedule has been advanced by a few months. It was supposed to start operation in FY15, but we will do it this financial year itself. This will enable us to deliver cars quickly." "We've had some expectations in the past, but never made correct forecast. All we can do is to get prepared for the (demand-supply) gap that could arise in the future. In the case of Amaze, demand was more than our expectation, that's why we immediately started preparing for the third shift. It worked well. Therefore, to take quickest action, is to fill the gap between the forecast and result. That is the key." "We have to further accelerate the speed of growth. Just launching a new model is not enough. Customer satisfaction is more important. Our aim is to be the most trusted company in India, and to this end our products should not only be good quality, but we should offer excellent service too." |
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Originally Posted by RavenAvi
(Post 3344263)
The Brio Diesel & made-in-India small car (sub-Brio) project have been shelved. |
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Originally Posted by GrammarNazi
(Post 3344837)
I don't think the chassis of Brio can support the iDtec reliably. The vibrations would be quite disturbing. And think about it, tiny light hatches like Brio with SO much power on tap would be flying around, handling too would be quite scary. EDIT : And the CR-V maybe with a 2.0L iDtec. |
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Originally Posted by a4anurag
(Post 3344878)
They will stiffen the chassis at the necessary points to meet up with the i-DTEC's Torque and moreover the Brio will be rated between 65-75PS and the motor will be detuned and brought down for excise benefits. |
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Originally Posted by a4anurag
(Post 3344878)
Honda does know how to make cars but the only problem I see is skinny tyres they provide and Honda's attachment with 175 section tyres... |
| They will stiffen the chassis at the necessary points to meet up with the i-DTEC's Torque and moreover the Brio will be rated between 65-75PS and the motor will be detuned and brought down for excise benefits... |
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Originally Posted by GrammarNazi
(Post 3344837)
I don't think the chassis of Brio can support the iDtec reliably. The vibrations would be quite disturbing. And think about it, tiny light hatches like Brio with SO much power on tap would be flying around, handling too would be quite scary. IMO Honda will only concentrate on using the iDtec in its current iteration (with FGT in the 100PS state of tune) in maximum number of cars possible, including the upcoming Jazz & Mobilio. Then comes Honda's entry level SUV in 2016-17. After recovering some investments from the iDtec, only then they'd go with a VGT, tuned to make it produce 120PS. Making it the FIRST Indian SUV to deliver 25kmpl. EDIT : And the CR-V maybe with a 2.0L iDtec. |
| "Honda has grown and its global sales for the last financial year for the first time reached the four million mark. For the 2016-17, the target is six million and most of the increase is going to come from emerging markets such as India. That means we need to penetrate more and we need more cars to meet the market demand. In India, we did not have a diesel engine car and to expand the market we introduced Amaze and we are going to have more cars in the next financial year, which will include an MUV and the new Jazz. The second element of the strategy is the focus on the increasing local content because of the difficulty that we faced because of the falling rupee. Amaze was built with 90% local content and City has 92%. Third, we are also focusing on the smaller towns and cities. By March, the target is to have 150 dealerships with 20 in newer cities. By March 2014, we hope to have 170 dealers in 110 cities, compared to 102 cities earlier. We don't have dealers in tier-II and tier-III cities and there are many customers waiting for Honda to come. We will look at an SUV as well as other models so that there are many more choices. We are thinking of an SUV, which we hope is very soon, may be one-two years. We already have CR-V, therefore, we want it in sub-Rs 20 lakh segment, although we haven't really identified the segment." |
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